Tag Archives: the obama lie

“A Muslim doesn’t record another Muslim,” said Gamal Abdel-Hafiz (shown). This might not have been noteworthy except that Abdel-Hafiz was an FBI agent at the time and was refusing to do his duty, which at that moment involved taping a Muslim suspect.

That was 2002, and this is now. And now the Cairo-born Abdel-Hafiz has moved on to bigger and perhaps better things — he’s a homeland-security advisor to Barack Obama. And while recording a single Muslim is a problem for him, putting every single American firearm owner on a gun-registry he fancies a good idea. WFAA.com reports on his idea:

A former FBI counter-terrorism agent says lawmakers could make mass murders less likely. “What we need to do is keep the ownership of guns known to the government, so we know who has what,” said security consultant Gamal Abdel-Hafiz. “And I know a lot of people are against that.”

… “He shouldn’t have been able to buy a gun legally. He shouldn’t,” said Abdel-Hafiz about 29 year-old Omar Mateen [the Orlando jihadist]. He says 3 FBI interviews should have been enough to keep Mateen on the radar, but he also knows why he wasn’t. “Once you investigate someone and clear them, you have to remove them from the watch list by law,” he explained Monday from his office in Dallas.

And even if Mateen had been on a terror watch list, or no-fly list, that would not have prohibited him from legally buying weapons…

With the Obama presidency in its final year, there is one central element of his foreign policy that has received little attention – the dramatic acceleration of lethal weapons exports by the U.S. military and defense contractors. As Ammo.com details,the Obama administration has approved more lethal weapon sales to more foreign countries than any U.S. administration since World War II.Many billions more than G.W. Bush’s administration, in fact. And some of these sales will likely result in unintended consequences i.e. “blowback” – especially as more than 60 percent of them have gone to the Middle East and Persian Gulf.

On May 23rd, President Obama announced at a press conference in Hanoi that the U.S. would be lifting its decades-long embargo on sales of lethal weapons to Vietnam. Such a reversal in U.S. foreign policy raises questions: How does the U.S. arms export market actually work? Which companies in the military-industrial complex profit from these sales? Who really ends up with U.S. weapons? And most importantly, how many of those weapons could eventually be used against us?

May 27, 2016 | admintam

(COMMONDREAMS) A series of emails released Friday show what activists describe as “collusion” between U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and Wall Street executives to push for the passage the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The emails (pdf), obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the group Rootstrikers, which organizes against money in politics, include a message to Froman from a managing director at Goldman Sachs urging him to push for “robust commitments” on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions—which allow private corporations to sue governments for perceived loss of profits—to be included in the divisive trade deal.

“I wanted to underscore how important it is for the financial services industry to get robust commitments on ISDS in the agreement… denying our industry the same rights as enjoyed by every other sector would be terribly unfortunate,” the email states.

Another mentions it would be “good for the U.S.” if lawmakers in U.S. Congress passed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), also known as “fast track,” which would allow the president to send trade deals to the House and Senate for a yes-or-no vote, rather than allowing them to make amendments to the agreements.

“Will do what I can to assist,” reads the email from the Goldman Sachs lobbyist, sent in February 2015—just a few months before the Senate passed TPA in what opponents called a “great day for corporate America.”

Froman responded that he would assign a staff member to be in contact with Goldman Sachs’ lobbyist team, and that he would “welcome the chance to pick your brain” on the equally controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Rootstrikers—which is part of a newly launched financial reform coalition called Take On Wall Street—also noted that Froman, then chief of staff to the Treasury Secretary, was “instrumental” in the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which created a firewall between the investment and commercial banking sectors, and has maintained a friendly relationship with the financial industry during his time as trade rep.

As the American Prospect reported in June 2015, under Froman’s leadership, “more ex-lobbyists have funneled through USTR, practically no enforcement of prior trade violations has taken place, and new agreements like TPP are dubiously sold as progressive achievements, laced with condescension for anyone who disagrees.”

Kurt Walters, campaign director at Rootstrikers, said Friday, “Wall Street knows it can get favors in closed door negotiations that could never survive the light of day in Congress. One thing has been consistent during Michael Froman’s frequent trips through the Wall Street-to-Washington revolving door: He’s repeatedly used his official positions to deliver for his friends at the biggest banks on Wall Street.”

“It’s fair to ask whether Froman is negotiating on behalf of the American public or to benefit the financial sector that gave him a massive golden parachute bonus upon his shift from Citigroup executive to U.S. Trade Representative,” Walters added, noting that Froman received more than $4 million upon leaving Citigroup in 2013.

Froman repeatedly ignored calls by Rootstrikers to release the emails as public opposition to TPP began to grow in recent years. A USTR representative said in 2015 that Froman has “been very clear, on repeated occasions, in public and in private, that this administration will do nothing that puts at risk the Wall Street reforms.”

On October 14, 2011, a U.S. drone killed a 16-year-old American citizen while he was eating dinner in a restaurant in Yemen.

Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was born in Denver, Colorado and went to live with his grandfather in Yemen at the age of 7. His grandfather described him as “a typical teenager — he watched ‘The Simpsons,’ listened to Snoop Dogg, read ‘Harry Potter’ and had a Facebook page with many friends.”

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Nasser al-Awlaki said his grandson, “had a mop of curly hair, glasses like me and a wide, goofy smile.”

Or at least he did until his government killed him.

Judge David Barron authored the memo that gave the legal justification for assassinating, without trial, American citizens suspected of terrorism. Abdulrahman’s father, Anwar al-Awlaki, was also a U.S. citizen killed weeks prior by an American drone.

Anwar al-Awlaki had a history of anti-American extremist activity. It is highly likely that he is every bit the terrorist he was accused of being and which made him a target. The recent debate over whether David Barron should be confirmed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals—the second highest court in the land—has largely centered on whether allegedly traitorous American citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki deserve due process.

President Barack Obama signs the Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010. (Photo: Pete Marovich/ZUMA/Newscom)

Six years ago Wednesday, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. Since then, Americans have seen their premiums increase, a dozen nonprofit insurers have closed their doors and the number of people on the Medicaid rolls has expanded.

Americans nationwide have both praised and cursed the law since the federal and state-run exchanges launched in October 2013.

Many credit the president with giving them access to coverage—the result of Obamacare’s provision prohibiting insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions. Others, meanwhile, have reported high premiums and deductibles, with the cost of their coverage increasing annually.

And for some, the cost of premiums has increased enough to leave them choosing between paying for insurance or paying the fine and going without.

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Here are five graphs charting Obamacare’s six-year history.

1) The Cost of HealthCare.gov

Obamacare’s implementation in October 2013 came with the launch of HealthCare.gov, the federal health insurance exchange.

Just six people successfully signed up for health insurance on HealthCare.gov on Oct. 1, 2013, because of massive glitches and failures with the site. In the months that followed the disastrous launch, the Republican-led House of Representatives held numerous hearings to determine why the Obama administration decided to launch the website.

The Department of Health and Human Services fired CGI Federal, which was originally tasked with building HealthCare.gov, after the website’s launch and signed a new contract with Accenture to rebuild the exchange.

Though the Obama administration hasn’t formally said how much HealthCare.gov cost the taxpayers, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said last May that the website cost $834 million. Similarly, a report from the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General put the cost of the exchange at $800 million.

An analysis by Bloomberg Government, though, put the total cost at $2.1 billion. Bloomberg Government took into account budgetary costs for the Internal Revenue Service and other government agencies, as well as contracts reworked to pay for the website.

2) Obamacare’s 2014 Enrollment Numbers

According to the Obama administration, 9.25 million consumers enrolled in coverage in 2014 on the federal and state-run exchanges. An analysis of enrollment figures conducted by Ed Haislmaier, a senior research fellow in health policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, and Drew Gonshorowski, a senior policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of those enrollees qualified for Medicaid under Obamacare’s loosened eligibility requirements.